Deep Architectures of Inquiry

This project, which consisted of a number of elements, included an installation and an event, to which the publication ‘Deep Architectures of Inquiry’, published under moniker of the  Office of Experiments – was intended as an accompaniment to a guided tour by Neal White and Tina O’Connell to the R1 Nuclear Reactor. 

The excursion from Fargfabriken in Stockholm, to the R1 Nuclear reactor at KTH, at University of Stockholm aimed to give visitors access to an extraordinary site of experimentation. Visitors to the R1 descend 20 metres below the surface into the former reactor hall where they would experience a site specific installation, including the projected image of a giant rotating mass. This mass, consisted of a concrete boulder cut from the space, and made from images of the void left behind once the nuclear reactor core was removed.

Additional hardware – light based technologies, inscribed the space with data taken from seismic and ground vibration sensors, as well as historical images of early nuclear tests by Harold Edgerton.

All details of these features are explored in the publication, along with additional materials from the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, including certificates from some of the volunteers who took part in early Atomic Bomb tests. Additional speculative texts spoke of the workers and their time beneath the surface, much like Nuclear submariners today.  The R1 is situated close to Pionen data centre: White Mountain, a server farm created to serve as cold war nuclear defence shelter that has featured in films by artists and major film makers.

Publication design by Arne Sjogren.

The publication was part of the exhibition:

‘All that is data melts into air’ in ‘Recovering Data Remains’ Fargfabriken, Stockholm, Sweden. Oct 2017

All that is Data Melts into Air was an inquiry into data transferred from one context to another – from the scientific into the artistic. Neal White and Tina O’Connell works explored the situated nature of data at Fargfabriken in Stockholm, using images made in the R1, and through chemical analysis of core taken from the space. Shown alongside work curated by Daniel Peltz, the focus links the white cube space to the subterranean space of R1.

Video installation with artefacts, and a guided tour of R1.

More information on All that is data… here

Commissioneed by Michael Schwab, Gerhard Erckel and David Pirro, the event was part of Trasnpositions, an eventual in which a range of International artists and leading thinkers /academics exploring data from perspectives in art and science and technology met to discuss, listen and experience new works. Funded by the Austrian Science Fund.

Office of Experiments
Office of Experiments; Experimental Imprint. Researched and authored by Neal White – artist, based on a project with Tina O’Connell

More information on Transpositions here